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If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity

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Re: If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity

#601

Post by Forgeties79 »

degrews wrote: post #106

I moved from Spain to the US, and I often find myself trying to explain to people back home just how miserable and even humiliating the pedestrian experience is here. Here are some other examples of things that I think contribute to the hostile walking experience in the US: * Cars parked in short driveways often extend all the way across the sidewalk. Even if you can easily step off onto the road to walk around them…

I’ve never heard the experience described as “humiliating,” which is incredibly surprising because just seeing that written out (and your thoughtful elaboration) made a lot of things click into place for me.

Re: If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity

#602

Post by kaashif »

Slow_Hand wrote: post #483
fnimick wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a conversation recently with someone lamenting that we didn't have roads like LA here in Boston. Saying their ideal road was 3 lanes, plus a bike lane, plus a bus lane in each direction. Imagine being a pedestrian trying to cross that! I really don't understand someone who looks at that traffic disaster and wants to build the same thing here at home.

I’ve lived in LA for five years now and lived in Boston for seven years prior. They’re both uniquely terrible. LA’s roads are easy to imagine because it’s synonymous with huge interstates, congestion, and long commutes. Boston is terrible because it’s layout makes zero intuitive sense and looks like spaghetti when viewed from the sky. Of course Boston predates the automobile, so I understand why. I do enjoy the preva…

> Of course Boston predates the automobile, so I understand why.

New York City's grid plan far predates the automobile: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commissioners%27_Plan_of_181...

Grids are sometimes but not always caused by cities being designed for cars.

Re: If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity

#603

Post by johnnyanmac »

valtism wrote: post #413
IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

really? Tokyo is very oriented towards pedestrian traffic, considering shinkansen and most rail service - yet satellite suburban sites, like Saitama, etc have tiny residential rows that literally don't fit both a car and a pedestrian. And that's where most people live. Yet Japan is highly pedestrian. Now, South America. Most if not all urban centers of 1M are extremely well covered by bus networks. And they have to,…

re: Japan, I think it has to do with having higher density, meaning many things are within shorter walking distances. I also think Japan is generally a lot more pleasant to walk in than the US

Correct. People in these EU countries never understand how large the US is. it has the 3rd highest population but is almost 10 times less dense than Japan, 9 times less dense than the UK. There's so much dang land here. And until modern industrialism so much of it sucks to build a proper community around. mountainous, extreme weather, disaster prone, simply infertile. Much of western US doesn't have hundreds of miles of view into the horizon; you're going to get cut off maybe 5, 10 miles off by some mountain (or you live in a valley). It's very hard to "just build denser cities" in the same way the EU could.

That's what makes China really impressive (losgistically speaking). it's really large AND very dense population wise (I don't know about the land quality).

Re: If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity

#604

Post by johnnyanmac »

chrismcb wrote: post #458
degrews wrote: post #106

I moved from Spain to the US, and I often find myself trying to explain to people back home just how miserable and even humiliating the pedestrian experience is here. Here are some other examples of things that I think contribute to the hostile walking experience in the US: * Cars parked in short driveways often extend all the way across the sidewalk. Even if you can easily step off onto the road to walk around them…

It is illegal in most places to park a car on the sidewalk. I don't know of anyone, at least the big chains, that will serve a pedestrian in a drive thru. If you live in a more walkable part of town there is usually an all night diner.

>If you live in a more walkable part of town there is usually an all night diner.

Oh I wish. On the contrary, it feels most everything closes around 9pm here and it hurts as a night owl. Heck, so many cafes seem to close around 6-7pm.

Re: If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity

#605

Post by underdeserver »

axpy wrote: post #563
Gibbon1 wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the more modes of transportation you mix together the worse the cognitive load on people. And it get rapidly worse the higher the density. Inside of a mall where there are only pedestrians is very safe. Freeways are fairly safe. Protected bike lanes are safe. Light rail is safe. Mix all of those on a strode, rail, buses, trucks, cars, bicycles, pedestrians, not safe.

This seems pretty counter intuitive but this is often the other way around. The safest streets in Europe are where cars, bikes and pedestrian mix together. It force focus on the driving task instead of doing something else. If you are interested, Freakonomics have an episode: "Why the U.S. so good at killing pedestrian". It's an interesting discussion with no simple answer.

As an equal-parts driver, biker, e-scooter rider and pedestrian, this is horrible. Yes, you have to focus on the driving, or walking, or scooting, but you're in constant stress because you can accidentally hit someone coming from any direction. Or they can hit you.

It's far better to have separate spaces, and cross only when you really have to.

Re: If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity

#606

Post by 113 »

bit_logic wrote: post #535
degrews wrote: post #106

I moved from Spain to the US, and I often find myself trying to explain to people back home just how miserable and even humiliating the pedestrian experience is here. Here are some other examples of things that I think contribute to the hostile walking experience in the US: * Cars parked in short driveways often extend all the way across the sidewalk. Even if you can easily step off onto the road to walk around them…

People in this thread are really talking past each other. I've been to the nice Asian mega cities with great and clean subways and buses. And I've lived in the American suburbs. You can't make the American suburbs like the mega cities by just making them walkable. Everything in a mega city works together to make transit work. Those tall buildings? They provide great shade no matter how sunny it is which is critical f…

>Those tall buildings? They provide great shade no matter how sunny it is which is critical for walking to bus stops and subway stations.

Did you just make this whole post up? This is obviously wrong.

Re: If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity

#607

Post by ahaferburg »

erik_seaberg wrote: post #371
FooBarBizBazz wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans don't live in cities, or in towns, or in villages. They are farmed in facilities called "housing developments", where there are no stores. A developer purchases large plots of agricultural land, and colludes with government to put a sprawling system of widely-separated four- to six- lane roads through it (often by widening and paving country roads until they are unrecognizable). Then, to hide this ugliness…

> preserved in your oversized fridge Our governments recommend storing several days' worth of food and water in case of emergency. Your supply chain had better be very reliable without it.

Your governments also recommend driving everywhere by car. You're kinda missing the point.

Re: If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity

#608

Post by tristor »

whimsicalism wrote: post #267
jodrellblank wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't why it's a bad idea at all; people don't walk and instead drive because walking "feels" unsafe. Legislate changes to make walking "feel" safer and people will walk instead of drive, and then will be safer because the changes will be things like separated walkways from cars, more guarded pedestrian crossings, road design which slows traffic, and more people walking will mean fewer cars on the road.

But bikers are not a large reason people aren't pedestrians. I agree that a certain level of abstraction 'feel' is important, but we shouldn't legislate by 'feel' about how people 'feel' about bikes, that is one level of 'feel' too many.

> But bikers are not a large reason people aren't pedestrians.

They are a significant piece of the reason in NYC, although car-centric road design is a larger piece.

You and several other commenters continue to ignore people pointing out seriously problems that are localized in NYC by quoting stats that are for the entire country.

Re: If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity

#609

Post by maxbond »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #599
maxbond wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry this person was rude to you, but I think you're extrapolating far too much. People on the right have their own infuriating comments they make, I would hazard a guess you may not notice them because they aren't directed at you. One I've had tossed at me during a discussion is, "if you aren't a socialist when you're 20, you have no heart, but if your still a socialist when you're 50, you have no head." This i…

>eople on the right have their own infuriating comments they make, I would hazard a guess you may not notice them because they aren't directed at you. Based purely on forum internet discourse: when talking about "micro discussions" (a kind term for "flame war between 2-3 people that go on for dozens of comments), the most negative Left-leaning language tends to be "personal", while the most negative Right-leaning lan…

Again, it would be fun if I never had to deal with people implying my views implied I was actually a bad person, but it's not the case. I also see this in lots of conversations that aren't political, so I think it's more of an online discourse thing. People get nasty to each other online.

> This can mean that a right leaning person at worst can feel like a prick. But a left leaning person can feel like a nag.

What I'm trying to tell you is, these are the same thing wrapped up packaged with different aesthetics.

This brush is just too darn broad. If you're gunnuh judge by flame wars, everyone is gunnuh come out smelling like poo.

Re: If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity

#610

Post by rdtsc »

sershe wrote: post #489
aesclepius wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus it's objectively worse. NY/Chicago/London/Paris/Tokyo you can conceivably and easily nip out to a grocer's, bodega, cafe or pub within 10 minutes of where you are. LA? Outside of certain certain pockets like DTLA, KTown, WeHo or similar walking is tough and if your friend is across town you're SoL without a car.

But I don't want to! I literally just walked to the store and it was in absoute perfect conditions - we wanted to go for a walk anyway, the weather is perfect (sunny but not hot), the store is 10min walk from my house, the neighborhood is nice and not drive-thru so there is ~0 non-local traffic. The plan was we go for a walk, and pop by a store and get one item. But as usual it never ends up being that way, so we had…

Grew up in the city and yeah you get used to it. We had our own bags my mom sewed or mesh bags. If we bought something like beer it wasn’t in 6 packs but one or two bottles at a time. Also we had decent public transportation, we’d hop on a trolleybus (electric buses) even for a few stops if the bags got heavy.

At the same time I agree that it wasn’t fun and I didn’t enjoy it as a kid. If we could have an option to have a car, drive it and fill the trunk with groceries and drive back we would have.

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